Attorney David Schwartz visited Fox News Sunday morning to speculate on the legal aspects of the crash that left Tracy Morgan critically injured and possibly needing a leg amputation, in addition to his killing his close friend James McNair and injuring several others.

As we know by now the 35-year-old driver, Kevin Roper, was charged on one count of death by auto and four counts of assault by auto, which — according to Schwartz — could land him 5-10 years in jail if convicted for reckless driving due to falling asleep behind the wheel. Tucker Carlson, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to understand what the big freaking deal is. I mean, it’s sleeping! Everybody sleeps! How can you go to jail for that?

“I’m not trying to take anything away from the tragedy of this,” Carlson replied. “But 10 years in jail for falling asleep? It strikes me as very different from taking drugs, drinking. Has that ever happened? Has anybody ever actually gone to jail for falling asleep?”

“But, I mean sometimes people — and I’m not defending anyone here,” Carlson continued. “I’m really struck by the idea that someone who falls asleep — which is something that everybody does every day, not necessarily considered an act of recklessness — does it unintentionally, nods off is a criminal.”

Jesus Tucker, are you new here? Yes, if you knowingly drive a motor vehicle — much less a 40 ton killing machine — while severely lacking sleep to the point that your driving is impaired, you are committing reckless behavior. This looks to be the case as prosecutors are now stating that Roper had not slept in over 24 hours prior to the crash. So yeah, if you’re driving a big rig without sleeping in over 24 hours? That’s just a little bit reckless.

Trying to win more than lose! Driving trucks for a living it’s my road move or get hit! #Walmart

Despite everything we know right now, the crux in this case will likely come down to whether or not Roper was pressured by Walmart to operate a tractor trailer in a state in which he was lacking sleep. Either way Roper will probably see at least some jail time, but if Walmart was to blame then they’ll certainly be facing criminal liability as well. All we know for 100% sure at this point is that Tucker Carlson is a clueless dick for brains.

I guess he doesn’t realise that the DOT rules for mandating breaks as a truck operator are there exactly for this reason. Oh, and to lower drug abuse (meth – to stay awake and drive longer) in our war on drugs.

If we just let tractor trailers roam the highways without any pesky laws slowing them down, the free market will intervene and make sure everything balanced out in the end. Sure, we’ll have a whole lot of people killed along the way, but then consumers will make rational decisions to patronize companies that don’t employ drivers from “Maximum Overdrive” and bad actors like Wal-Mart will lose business and realize they need to reform.

Carlson has spent his career bitching about “needless government regulation” and now he’s chiming in on this case, insisting that there needs to be no criminal penalties for someone who violated one of the most important regulations of the trucking industry.

@TheRealMSol You should know better than to pick a fight with Otto Man. All he’ll do is be an asshole. Because he fails to see that he, who is politicizing a tragedy to espouse his political views and make people feel dumb if they have the AUDACITY to disagree, is a big of an asshole as Tucker Carlson, who politicizes tragedies to espouse his political views

“After an unsuccessful lawsuit failed to reverse the new rules, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 21 to 9 in favor of an amendment offered by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, to strip funding to enforce the new rules. Collins said the new rules have had “unintended consequences that are not in the best interest of carriers, shippers and the public.”

So yeah, actually, Big Business is all for making sure truckers drive a billion hours straight, consequences be damned. This isn’t a case of politicizing a tragedy; this is a case where the effects of deregulation are front and center and 100% opposite what’s best for Americans. But, then, I suppose job creators need their extra millions.

And no one here is politicizing. Tucker dumbass haircut Carlson was politicizing it.
Otto and the rest of us are commenting/replying to that. If you’re upset with this being political now, talk to Tucker formerly of House Bowtie, first of his name.

Thompson Reuters has a feature called judgment of the week. Many of them have been about reckless truckers of late. They’re “of the week” because their victims have been awarded by juries sums of well over ten million dollars.

States go after reckless truckers and they go HAM (Hard As A Motherfucker) for political reasons, commercial reasons, and because they’re actually pretty easy to prosecute when some asshole who hasn’t slept in two frays runs over a family.

This piece of shit caused a six-vehicle chain reaction crash that killed at least one and maimed four others.

He then kept going and didn’t turn himself in for over a day.

If I were Gov. Christie, who was a hard a fuck US Attorney, I’d be leaning on the local prosecutor to do exactly that. Punish this fucker and anyone else involved, like a couple of Wal-Mart dicks, and punish them HARD.

Aw come on Otto Man, post some links showing how a driver who broke laws and killed people is Wal Mart and Republicans fault. Because personal responsibility isn’t in play here at all. Its the EVIL CORPORATIONS, MAN.

No, I’m saying “free market enterprise” sounds like a word jumble from the Ayn Rand School for Tots. Most people call it either the “free enterprise system,” or the “free market.”

And whatever you call it, no, it’s not always good. Conservatives act like pure, unfettered capitalism was handed down in the Sermon on the Mount and any effort to regulate it is evil itself. The reason capitalism thrives in this country is that it has the government and its system of rules and regulations to make it work.

You want to see unadulterated free-market capitalism, go to Somalia. It’s a libertarian dream.

Look all I’m saying is that if truckers aren’t allowed to drive for 37 hours straight fueled by nothing but Starbucks High-Test Diesel Coffee and cocaine then my ‘Murican flag at Wal-Mart is going to cost a good .37 more and I am not going to stand for that.

@Otto Man
You’re correct. But there’s a difference between believing in a smaller government with less regulation and believing in a pure capitalist system with no government. Lumping the two together is small minded

All political bullshit aside, The DOT rating system called the CSA rates Wal-Mart private fleet drivers as one of the safest fleets in the country. In particular the “driver fatigue” portion is where WM scores it’s highest safety rating.

WM pays their drivers one of the best starting wages in the country (over 60k a year) and to even qualify for a job driving with them takes a near perfect driving record.

There is no way WM drivers can “fudge” their books because every little detail of the truck is tracked by a 3rd party via satellite.

WM never let’s their drivers operate more than the maximum hour allowed, which is no more than 11 hours a day, no more than 70 hours in a 8 day period. The reason for this is if you start getting bad CSA scores.. your company will start getting more mandatory inspections and random DOT/trooper stops… etc.. If a WM driver even gets close to max hours. They are warned, and if they happen to go over even a little bit the lose out on safety bonus money.

In the last 24 months you can count on your own fingers how many people have been involved in fatality accidents involving WM trucks (CSA doesn’t list fault or if WM driver is a fatality) and the number is kind of staggering when you see how miles were driven in the last 2 years.

Careful. Otto man is gonna pop in with charts and graphs showing how Wal Mart eats children and rapes the elderly and that’s why we need more government, but only democrats and than insult you a few times for it too, and than end on a slam with the Koch brothers and somehow try to make it on topic

Actually Tuckers statement was just about his responsibility in the crash. Stupid, yes but political no. Than evilsansucre mentioned them in the context of his responsibility as a driver, not political. Otto man is the one who brought up regulations and the ridiculousness of libertarians and deregulation. Both political and off topic

My main gripe is how he talks to people. I could care less about his politics. He could be a fascist nazi for all I care. But he’s condescending and rude in most of his comments, which is what I take most issue with.

I get you (did i mention I’m drunk) I will just say this… I fucking hate blind faith in politics from any side. A wise man once said “We deal in lead.” well I deal in facts only… If a 3rd shift worker only makes $8 an hour at WM.. there may be some social commentary there. But if you try to extrapolate that data into fatality auto crashes without checking your facts first.. well in my opinion, all should catch a dick in the neck.

He’s a professional asshole, AKA a pundit, who gets paid handsomely to say stupid shit that rile up stupid people — conservatives who agree with the whole Damn Big Government and liberals who think it’s worth their time arguing about it when the stakes of the argument are originally set by, as I mentioned, professional assholes (pundits).

That wasn’t supposed to be a reply, but I’ll just repeat what others have said. You are the one obsessing about Otto. I don’t give a fuck how he spends his time, though I do admire his research skills.